


Pokerface

by StainedGlassDreams



Series: Home Actually Home [1]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Cards, F/M, Fluff, Love, Poker, buckynat - Freeform, winterwidow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:09:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10045433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StainedGlassDreams/pseuds/StainedGlassDreams
Summary: Bucky calls Sam's bluff, and Bucky remembers his.





	

He plays cards with Sam, both examining the others tells.  
Before, he remembers that it was him touching behind his ear. There's still an itch, far off in the back of his mind where the place that used to be, exists. But he doesn't have any anymore.  
Sam's, though it's almost microscopic, having been in the same field as he & Steve, his cards shift minutely, his thumb moving behind the hand.

"Raise you." He says, throwing in another $5, making the pot something like $50 now. Which, in the non-existent "superhero salary", is not much.  
"Goddamn it." Sam sighs, folding.  
Bucky smirks, showing his hand.  
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."  
The hands were just as shitty, the bills going Bucky's way.  
"What was it that time?"  
Bucky smiles again, this time a little more serious. "Can't tell you. Otherwise, you won't learn to notice the tell."

He recalls when he first said that. Way back, in his morbidly laughably long timeline, when he first trained Nat.  
She lay, panting on the floor, hair in a ponytail. "[What am I doing wrong.]"  
He tightens the wraps on his hand, the moonlight coming through the small, snow speckled window above. "[You have to notice the tell. So I can't tell you.]"  
"[I don't tell.]"  
They spar again, as he notices it once again. Her breath will hitch in the slightest way, as her fist would pinch more near the pinky.  
It only took less than 2 days for her to know.  
The next week, his programming faltering, his sparring tell comes back. It was an old habit he'd had since the army. Small enough that even his generals didn't notice when it did.

"Nah, I should get going." Sam stretches as Bucky shifts back into reality. He notices, looking more cautious. "You okay?"  
Bucky nods. "Yeah. Nothing bad, just a random memory."  
Sam analyzes him a little more, always caring. Satisfied, he starts to get up. "Alright. Say hi to Nat when she comes in."  
Bucky walks him to the door. "I'll just show the pile of cash I'm going to use to take her to the Pancake House."  
Sam smirks. "Oh, she'll love that." He hugs Bucky before leaving. "Take care of yourself."  
"You too." Bucky says, as he closes the door.  
\---------

Natasha finds him sitting at the edge of the bed, going through his small box of army things SHIELD somehow, inexplicably, found.  
The one he was holding was his old card deck, an ace and the 2 jokers missing, having given the jokers to Dernier as a joke, and the ace taken by Dum-Dum.  
"Hey." He said, smiling as she kissed him. Her taste something liquor wished it could be half as intoxicating as.  
She looked in his eyes, noticing the box. "[Everything okay?]"  
He nods, his hand in hers. "Yeah. Just something Sam said that reminded me of something."  
She lingered his gaze a little longer before nodding.  
"How about you?"  
"Nothing special, just catching some HYDRA [ass]." She went to the shower, the small look in her eyes inviting him over as he rose from the bed and walked with her.  
She began to take off her clothes as he undid her bun gently, kissing the back of her neck as he did.  
"You beat Sam at poker again?" Natasha smiled.  
"Mmm. He says hi."  
"He does know there's no point in trying to win, right?"  
"He's beat me before." He says, holding her waist.  
She reaches up, caressing her cheek. "A year ago."  
"Perseverance is practice." He says, intertwining his fingers with her as she closed her hand into his touch.  
She turned to him, now nude as she said "[What say we have some now?]", smirking.  
\------

They lay in bed together, dry from their shower together.  
Natasha turned to look at James, pressing against his chest earlier. "What did Sam say earlier that made you look through your box?"  
He kept his hand on her back, making small circles with his finger. "He asked what his tell was. I told him I couldn't tell him."  
"I remember yours." She said, reminiscing. "You only showed it twice. You made this brief hand gesture to your side, like you were reaching for a gun."  
The memory came back to him, a strange look in Natalia's eyes when he did the movement.  
"....I remember." The shared immediate thought, the rememberance of his programming breaking. Karpov's growing disapproval.  
He clutches her a little tighter, lost in the memory.  
"Hey." She says, bringing him back.  
He sighs, about to apologize as she stops him.  
Natalia kisses him, soft as it was affirming, anchoring them both here.  
He looks into her eyes like she was the answer to life itself. As far he would ever understand it, whatever he could understand, she was.  
She adjusts her body closer to his. "We aren't going to a pancake house with your winnings."  
He chuckles. "You're trying to kill me."  
"No. Just exercising perseverance."

The box was closed and put back in the closet, as they embraced, sleeping in each other's arms.  
The odds and aces, actually in their favor.


End file.
